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One thing that really horrified me was how quickly people threw away the economy. Unfortunately, this virus is highly contagious (to the point that the vast ma

One thing that really horrified me was how quickly people threw away the economy. Unfortunately, this virus is highly contagious (to the point that the vast majority of countries won’t contain it) and fairly lethal. We don’t actually know how lethal, but it appears 1%-3%, but without widespread testing we wouldn’t know. At the moment, we just reduced our GDP by 30%-50% in regions under quarantine. Think about that for a second... Now consider the fact that the supply chain is also all kinds of messed up and with the loss of jobs people have less money. Finally, save this, but I don’t think the US quarantine is going to do much to lower the curve. Simply put, the west is not prepared. Our checkouts are run by people without masks or gloves. People still are closer than 2 meters (or 6 feet). To lower the curve we’d need strict quarantine (no leaving the house) for a month or two. Even then we won’t have enough masks, hopefully we’d have enough ventilators and tests by then... Point is, we are tanking our economy and mark my words — it won’t work. People voted, had spring break, celebrated st. Patrick’s day went out shopping in droves. It’s likely too late, one sick per household and they infect the whole house. All this to say: we are losing our economy and probably this isn’t effective.

zaidf 7y ago
“one sick per household and they infect the whole house“ This happened repeatedly in China; in fact, the nature of a lockdown sort of encourages this. But an infected household of 5 ppl is significantly easier to contain than 1 infected person going on to infect 4 people from 4 different walks of life.
- TwoNineFive 7y ago
  The same-household infection rate in china was 10.5% last I read. I don't know if there's any data yet from other countries.
booleandilemma 7y ago
New Yorker here. From what I see through my window, my fellow New Yorkers still don’t “get it”. I see clusters of people hanging out and families going for leisurely walks. If this keeps up the number of infections - and deaths - will only increase. Last week my brother suggested instead of working from home I work from a Starbucks. I feel like people don’t understand how serious this is and it’s really bothering me.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  There's nothing wrong with people that are living together going for a walk together, it won't particularly increase their exposure. People should cooperate and keep distance, but it's not a big deal to just be outside a reasonable distance from small numbers of other people.
  - war1025 7y ago
    Something that amused me the other day was was an NPR reporter saying, "I went to the park yesterday and I was surprised at all the people just out in the park" as if they didn't also make the choice to go to the park.
    - senordevnyc 7y ago
      I feel this. Every time I go out (to the park) I’m amazed at how many people are out. I start thinking about how we’re doomed, because people obviously aren’t taking this seriously. I mean, they’re at the park instead of huddled in their apartment! Then I remember I’m at the park too...
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > There's nothing wrong with people that are living together going for a walk together, it won't particularly increase their exposure. And it might help to keep them from going stir crazy from being cooped up inside too long...
- jmull 7y ago
  Leisurely family walks are fine. Generally, clusters are OK for people that live together anyway.
- danharaj 7y ago
  I'm more sanguine. I live on a busy Brooklyn street which is normally packed with people shoulder to shoulder during the day, and I will see maybe 5-10 people on the block at what should be the busiest time. I think it's like a 90%-95% reduction which is certainly substantial enough to quench the spread enough to reduce the shock hospitals are receiving. Doing my part (I have asthma), I haven't left the apartment since Sunday :^)
war1025 7y ago
Well, only one way to find out, right?
maxerickson 7y ago
Reasonable compliance with social distancing from 25% of the population has a huge impact on the slope of the curve. Of course better compliance from larger numbers of people has even more impact, but it's not a binary condition. That said, we probably aren't doing enough to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, or to even push that very far into the future.
- lettergram 7y ago
  Not enough, all the simulations show we’d need to basically reduce our number of interactions a day by 75% and double the number of ventilators by 100% to “stay under the curve” that’s if we didn’t have a huge number of celebrations and people in lines, etc. Projections are 500k dead by June. Maybe with the precautions we can slow the millions dead by the end of the year. It remains to be seen.
  - ivalm 7y ago
    I mean, italy is no longer exponential, China clearly contained their issues. The doom and gloom is somewhat overblown.
    - megous 7y ago
      https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ Looks fairly exponential to me. (log y axis) And that's just confirmed cases.
      - ivalm 7y ago
        Try to fit it. More easier is to look at daily new cases. For past 4 days they are increasing linearly (meaning total is quadratic)
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
mirimir 7y ago
Sure, but if what you say is accurate, it wouldn't matter. Once people started dying by the thousand, even if they're all old, governments would be forced to lock stuff down. And even if they didn't, the economy would be hosed.
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
So let's cancel any sort of response, as you propose. What do the next two weeks, two months, etc. look like? I think it's the human condition to least try, but I can entertain the reality that some Americans just aren't for social distancing and of that segment, some will become superspreaders.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  They should be charged and prosecuted for putting others in danger.
faitswulff 7y ago
As a counterpoint, Illinois just ordered residents to shelter-in-place after closing schools and restaurants a week ago and our new cases of COVID-19 aren't accelerating upward as of today. This model also predicts far fewer deaths with shelter-in-place rules: https://covidactnow.org/state/IL https://covidactnow.org/state/IL As governor Pritzker said: "I fully recognize I am choosing between saving people's lives and saving people's livelihoods, but ultimately you can't have a livelihood if you don't have a life."
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  The problem will be how long the shelter in place can be maintained; as long as you have folks coming in infected from other states, once the mass quarantine is lifted, outbreaks will flare up. This only ends with a vaccine and enough people recovered after infection we arrive near enough herd immunity. Until then this will have to burn through populations. Regardless, I can appreciate and support Pritzker’s response, and efforts to “flatten the curve”. It’s an unfortunate situation with no clear path to success.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    I agree with your first paragraph. On the second, I would think a moderately successful therapeutic protocol would go a long way to quickly getting us out of the houses. A vaccine is too long a time away to count on; there won’t be an economy left by then.
  - ericd 7y ago
    We don’t have a vaccine for the common cold, not for lack of trying. AFAIK we’ve never made a vaccine for a coronavirus. This isn’t the time to be relying on silver bullets.
    - zeroonetwothree 7y ago
      Common cold is caused by hundreds of different viruses so a single vaccine is not useful
pbourke 7y ago
> We don’t actually know how lethal, but it appears 1%-3%, but without widespread testing we wouldn’t know. That’s the fatality rate within a functioning medical system. It’s safe to assume that if the virus is uncontrolled the rate will be substantially higher.
- logicchains 7y ago
  Why? There wasn't enough testing/medical capacity for at least the first month in Wuhan, and the rate wasn't any higher.
  - OGWhales 7y ago
    Well we can look at Italy for example. Also America has a lot of obese people, which are supposedly at a high risk, so it’s possible we see a higher fatality rate. I personally don’t think so just trying to answer your question
    - logicchains 7y ago
      We don't know the total number of infections in Italy so we can't get a meaningful estimate from there.
      - mjul 7y ago
        Meneghini and Gram Pedersen of University of Padova just extended the standard “SIR” epidemiology model with quarantine and it has the nice property of being able to estimate the infections from the observables. Preprint on Researchgate: “ Quantifying undetected COVID-19 cases and effects of containment measures in Italy”
tuna-piano 7y ago
Even if you take an extremely high estimate of the currently infected in the US, you're probably in the low 100s of thousands of people, approx <0.1% of the country. So to say it's "likely too late" is just crazy - 99.9% of the country is not yet infected.
tinyhouse 7y ago
I wouldn't say it's lethal, at least not for everyone. The last report from Italy has stats on 2000 deaths. No deaths under age of 30 and only a few under 50, all with pre-existing health conditions. Women's median age close to 84. Men's 80. And vast majority of deaths are people with multiple pre-existing health conditions.
- m_ke 7y ago
  42% of Americans are obese, this will hit us a lot harder than Europe.
  - Exmoor 7y ago
    Do you have any data to indicate that obese young people are significantly more at risk of dying than healthier individuals?
    - m_ke 7y ago
      We already have a bunch of 50 year old diabetics who passed away in the states. https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/13/23/asset/477a38122bb4/sub-buzz-470-1584141544-1.png?crop=1280:599;0,0&downsize=900:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/13/2... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/health/coronavirus-midlife-conditions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/health/coronavirus-midlif...
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    It's not like obesity isn't a problem in Europe, too. 25% is lower than 42%, sure, but it's still a lot.
    - m_ke 7y ago
      We have way more morbidly obese people though http://ncdrisc.org/morbid-obesity-population-bubble.html http://ncdrisc.org/morbid-obesity-population-bubble.html
- 7y ago
toast0 7y ago
I don't think the options are have a lockdown vs have a functioning economy and a bunch of sick people. Once hospitals start overflowing with this, you're not going to have a functioning economy anyway. If hospitals can get the supplies they need, and testing and health department capacity is there to do contact tracing, the lockdowns can loosen, and our economy can start back up. Bonus points if the warmer weather in the coming months helps fight the virus.
- daenz 7y ago
  >Once hospitals start overflowing with this, you're not going to have a functioning economy anyway. Is this true though? I'm not trying to be insensitive, but according to reports, ~15% of the infected need hospitalization, and the distribution of those people are mostly over 60[0]. Is having these people hospitalized on a large scale more detrimental to the economy than shutting everything down? Serious question. 0. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm
  - zaroth 7y ago
    The vast majority of people with COVID do not end up at the hospital. So it is absolute fact that we are sacrificing the economy in order to save, relatively speaking, a select few. If this continues for more than a few weeks - 50% of American business dies. 50% of America is unemployed. Contagion from massive defaults and write-offs spreads throughout the entire economy. Money printing at a rate heretofore unimaginable and probably hyperinflation to follow. It is no less than committing hari-kari in a moral panic. Hopefully we will wake up from the fever dream before it’s too late. “Flatten the curve” is a terrible lie. The extent and duration of the measures required would bankrupt 95% of the country. ICUs being overrun is actually an argument for getting the COVID cases out of the way quickly, not dragging it out over, say, 24 months. If you can get your head around the scale involved, if 80% of people are going to be infected and 14% of those are going to need serious treatment (doubtful, but the same assumption the “flatten” exercise is based on), there is actually no way to keep COVID cases “at or below” ICU capacity. They will absolutely take 100% of capacity and beyond for more than a year, if you drag it out. The longer you have COVID cases overwhelming your system, the longer you have non-COVID routine emergencies getting untreated. Either you can contain it in a few weeks or you have to let it burn through. There is no “slow smolder” scenario I can see that leaves society intact.
qqn 7y ago
> People voted, had spring break, celebrated st. Patrick’s day Sounds a lot like Philly' Spanish flu parade,[1] as compared to St. Louis' lockdown during the same.[2] [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chart-1918-spanish-flu-shows-173312236.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chart-1918-spanish-flu-shows-... [2] https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/quartz.com/df26ee36f79f85f57ad0137d3bf12c52 https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/quartz.com/df26ee36f79f85f57ad...
whb07 7y ago
Nowhere have you seen numbers that remotely approach 1-3%. You’ve seen the critical, largely elderly population get tested and from that you get that number that’s freaking people out. Stop spreading panic. With those kinds of numbers China alone would have 10M+ dead. In Japan, Singapore, surrounding nations more millions dead. Use a bit more common sense. We know we haven’t tested enough in the US, yet we don’t have bodies piling up on the street. You don’t have families of 4 where 2 suddenly die. This has been going on for greater than 3 months now. Stop spreading fear. The only thing to fear is the terrible consequences of those stuck inside the fear bubble
- empath75 7y ago
  China would have had those numbers if they didn’t quarantine a whole region for 3 months. They may still have those numbers after they lift the quarantine.
  - whb07 7y ago
    Quick now do the same for the 50 other countries nearby. What was their reason?
- m_ke 7y ago
  4 dead and 3 more in critical condition from a single family: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coronavirus-shatters-new-jersey-family-kills-3-4-more-hospitals-n1163696 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coronavirus-shatters-ne... 26 dead at the washington nursing home, 50 tested positive: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-deaths-washington-nursing-home-outbreak-2020-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-deaths-washingto... Death rates by preexisting condition: https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/13/23/asset/477a38122bb4/sub-buzz-470-1584141544-1.png?crop=1280:599;0,0&downsize=900:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/13/2... America has 42% obesity rate and a huge population with diabetes and heart issues, the numbers for 30-60 year olds might end up looking a lot worse than in Asia and Europe.
  - smallgovt 7y ago
opportune 7y ago
Well, in California: I got my groceries from people wearing masks. Everybody in the store kept 6 feet distance. I've been working from home for 2 weeks and will continue to do so for at least 3 more. Company wide mandate. Almost every business other than groceries/other essentials (where some are surprisingly "essential", granted) are closed so people have no reason to break quarantine except to perform essential tasks. So overall, I'd say we are doing exactly what we need to be doing. Hopefully the rest of the country follows suit
justanotherc 7y ago
Masks and gloves are ineffective for people who don't know how to use them -- wearing a mask? Great. Now you just felt hot and pulled the mask down onto your chin. Congratulations, the outside of the mask is no longer sterile. You're wearing gloves? Fabulous. Now you're out shopping pushing a cart and you just scratched your nose with your gloves. Cart handle is now contaminated or visa versa and gloves didn't change anything. PPE is only effective under very controlled environments, and the general population doesn't understand this. The economy will recover, especially since EVERY country is taking a hit, I don't think it will take very long for the capitalist engine to roar back to life. That's the beauty about capitalism -- you're turning the ingenuity of humans loose to be productive. As humans we're great at figuring out how to be productive.
- oggy 7y ago
  The effectiveness doesn't need to be perfect. If I'm now only 50% less contagious to others with my no-longer-sterile mask, that's a huge win.
  - justanotherc 7y ago
    There is a shortage of masks and other PPE because people think that way. There is a cost because if everyone were to wear masks, there is not enough supply for healthcare professionals who could actually benefit from them. The percentage of effectiveness isn't really measurable if the standard isn't followed. You're assuming its 50%, but it very well could be 0% because your equipment is just as contaminated as your hands. So you have not helped yourself, AND you have decreased supply of essential equipment from someone who ACTUALLY needs it. That's a big fail.
    - oggy 7y ago
      I agree that we shouldn't be taking the supply away from the professionals while there's a shortage, but your statement was that they were ineffective in the hands of laymen, and I don't think that's true. I'm not assuming that they are 50% effective either, I pulled the 50% number out of my ass, but so is your 0%, and I find it hard to imagine a physical reality where me keeping a 6 feet distance to an infected person decreases my infection probability significantly more than that person wearing a mask. Anecdotally, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, where wearing masks is quite commonplace all seem to be doing better in transmission rate than the Western world, and all that without killing their economies. And considering that we're producing around 2 billion disposable plastic bottles a day, I'd currently bet money that we should be able to ramp up the supply of cheap masks for a sum that's a lot less than that of halting 50% of the Western economy for several months. Obviously, it can't happen in a day, but I'm not really seeing anyone try, except for perhaps Trump after his recent epiphany that Corona is not a Democrats' hoax. I'm willing to be dissuaded by someone who's actually thought it through, but sadly I haven't seen any such analyses.
asdff 7y ago
More can definitely be done with enforcing quarantine. In LA, meat is still prepared and served openly on the side of the road, so long as you have a relatively trivial permit. Even though the state is 'locked down,' you are still free to venture out at your leisure. Technically bars are supposed to be closed, but there is a pervasive speakeasy culture that hasn't slowed down. The most vulnerable groups, the working class that pack like sardines in public transit every day, either continue work or are laid off. Tenement conditions still exist in Los Angeles, with multiple families cramming into a 1br apartment. Quarantine is really only affecting the knowledge workers who make up a minority of the population, and who interact with a sliver of the population to begin with. Effective quarantine would include protections for the working class, but there isn't any political will. I'm legitimately fearful of hitting the breaking point. Maybe some would call it overblown, or hysteria, but this is a city that endured three days of looting after a verdict, requiring the national guard to stabilize the situation. Men with rifles used to take positions on the roof of my grocery store. This isn't ancient history, unfortunately, it's who we are when pushed past our limits with nothing left to lose.
abootstrapper 7y ago
You have a point. We should have been aggressively testing at the start. Imagine if we had thrown the same amount of effort and money into initial testing as we are economic relief now. We'd still be open for business! But our leadership failed. So, now we have to lock down, but we should be doing it 100%. Hard core. Lock down. This weak half measure of "recommended guidelines" and leaving it up to local governments to adopt them is undermining the entire effort. It's tanking the economy AND not going to work. Let's swallow the damn pill and get it over with! Why is our leadership intent on dragging this out as long as possible? We should have been in hardcore, national lock down mode last Monday. We'll come around, once it's too late. "Americans will always do the right thing — after exhausting all the alternatives."
pdr2020 7y ago
"All this to say: I think we are losing our economy and I think probably this isn’t effective." Fixed this for you. (Additional comment: I will counter with I'm really amazed how quickly people threw away the economy in an effort to reduce lost lives. Normally, I expect people to be much more mercurial)

zaidf 7y ago

“one sick per household and they infect the whole house“ This happened repeatedly in China; in fact, the nature of a lockdown sort of encourages this. But an infected household of 5 ppl is significantly easier to contain than 1 infected person going on to infect 4 people from 4 different walks of life.

TwoNineFive 7y ago
The same-household infection rate in china was 10.5% last I read. I don't know if there's any data yet from other countries.

booleandilemma 7y ago

New Yorker here. From what I see through my window, my fellow New Yorkers still don’t “get it”. I see clusters of people hanging out and families going for leisurely walks. If this keeps up the number of infections - and deaths - will only increase. Last week my brother suggested instead of working from home I work from a Starbucks. I feel like people don’t understand how serious this is and it’s really bothering me.

maxerickson 7y ago
There's nothing wrong with people that are living together going for a walk together, it won't particularly increase their exposure. People should cooperate and keep distance, but it's not a big deal to just be outside a reasonable distance from small numbers of other people.
- war1025 7y ago
  Something that amused me the other day was was an NPR reporter saying, "I went to the park yesterday and I was surprised at all the people just out in the park" as if they didn't also make the choice to go to the park.
  - senordevnyc 7y ago
    I feel this. Every time I go out (to the park) I’m amazed at how many people are out. I start thinking about how we’re doomed, because people obviously aren’t taking this seriously. I mean, they’re at the park instead of huddled in their apartment! Then I remember I’m at the park too...
- pdonis 7y ago
  > There's nothing wrong with people that are living together going for a walk together, it won't particularly increase their exposure. And it might help to keep them from going stir crazy from being cooped up inside too long...
jmull 7y ago
Leisurely family walks are fine. Generally, clusters are OK for people that live together anyway.
danharaj 7y ago
I'm more sanguine. I live on a busy Brooklyn street which is normally packed with people shoulder to shoulder during the day, and I will see maybe 5-10 people on the block at what should be the busiest time. I think it's like a 90%-95% reduction which is certainly substantial enough to quench the spread enough to reduce the shock hospitals are receiving. Doing my part (I have asthma), I haven't left the apartment since Sunday :^)

war1025 7y ago

Well, only one way to find out, right?

maxerickson 7y ago

Reasonable compliance with social distancing from 25% of the population has a huge impact on the slope of the curve. Of course better compliance from larger numbers of people has even more impact, but it's not a binary condition. That said, we probably aren't doing enough to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, or to even push that very far into the future.

lettergram 7y ago
Not enough, all the simulations show we’d need to basically reduce our number of interactions a day by 75% and double the number of ventilators by 100% to “stay under the curve” that’s if we didn’t have a huge number of celebrations and people in lines, etc. Projections are 500k dead by June. Maybe with the precautions we can slow the millions dead by the end of the year. It remains to be seen.
- ivalm 7y ago
  I mean, italy is no longer exponential, China clearly contained their issues. The doom and gloom is somewhat overblown.
  - megous 7y ago
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ Looks fairly exponential to me. (log y axis) And that's just confirmed cases.
    - ivalm 7y ago
      Try to fit it. More easier is to look at daily new cases. For past 4 days they are increasing linearly (meaning total is quadratic)
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]

mirimir 7y ago

Sure, but if what you say is accurate, it wouldn't matter. Once people started dying by the thousand, even if they're all old, governments would be forced to lock stuff down. And even if they didn't, the economy would be hosed.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago

So let's cancel any sort of response, as you propose. What do the next two weeks, two months, etc. look like? I think it's the human condition to least try, but I can entertain the reality that some Americans just aren't for social distancing and of that segment, some will become superspreaders.

hanniabu 7y ago
They should be charged and prosecuted for putting others in danger.

faitswulff 7y ago

As a counterpoint, Illinois just ordered residents to shelter-in-place after closing schools and restaurants a week ago and our new cases of COVID-19 aren't accelerating upward as of today. This model also predicts far fewer deaths with shelter-in-place rules: https://covidactnow.org/state/IL https://covidactnow.org/state/IL As governor Pritzker said: "I fully recognize I am choosing between saving people's lives and saving people's livelihoods, but ultimately you can't have a livelihood if you don't have a life."

toomuchtodo 7y ago
The problem will be how long the shelter in place can be maintained; as long as you have folks coming in infected from other states, once the mass quarantine is lifted, outbreaks will flare up. This only ends with a vaccine and enough people recovered after infection we arrive near enough herd immunity. Until then this will have to burn through populations. Regardless, I can appreciate and support Pritzker’s response, and efforts to “flatten the curve”. It’s an unfortunate situation with no clear path to success.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  I agree with your first paragraph. On the second, I would think a moderately successful therapeutic protocol would go a long way to quickly getting us out of the houses. A vaccine is too long a time away to count on; there won’t be an economy left by then.
- ericd 7y ago
  We don’t have a vaccine for the common cold, not for lack of trying. AFAIK we’ve never made a vaccine for a coronavirus. This isn’t the time to be relying on silver bullets.
  - zeroonetwothree 7y ago
    Common cold is caused by hundreds of different viruses so a single vaccine is not useful

pbourke 7y ago

> We don’t actually know how lethal, but it appears 1%-3%, but without widespread testing we wouldn’t know. That’s the fatality rate within a functioning medical system. It’s safe to assume that if the virus is uncontrolled the rate will be substantially higher.

logicchains 7y ago
Why? There wasn't enough testing/medical capacity for at least the first month in Wuhan, and the rate wasn't any higher.
- OGWhales 7y ago
  Well we can look at Italy for example. Also America has a lot of obese people, which are supposedly at a high risk, so it’s possible we see a higher fatality rate. I personally don’t think so just trying to answer your question
  - logicchains 7y ago
    We don't know the total number of infections in Italy so we can't get a meaningful estimate from there.
    - mjul 7y ago
      Meneghini and Gram Pedersen of University of Padova just extended the standard “SIR” epidemiology model with quarantine and it has the nice property of being able to estimate the infections from the observables. Preprint on Researchgate: “ Quantifying undetected COVID-19 cases and effects of containment measures in Italy”

tuna-piano 7y ago

Even if you take an extremely high estimate of the currently infected in the US, you're probably in the low 100s of thousands of people, approx <0.1% of the country. So to say it's "likely too late" is just crazy - 99.9% of the country is not yet infected.

tinyhouse 7y ago

I wouldn't say it's lethal, at least not for everyone. The last report from Italy has stats on 2000 deaths. No deaths under age of 30 and only a few under 50, all with pre-existing health conditions. Women's median age close to 84. Men's 80. And vast majority of deaths are people with multiple pre-existing health conditions.

m_ke 7y ago
42% of Americans are obese, this will hit us a lot harder than Europe.
- Exmoor 7y ago
  Do you have any data to indicate that obese young people are significantly more at risk of dying than healthier individuals?
  - m_ke 7y ago
    We already have a bunch of 50 year old diabetics who passed away in the states. https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/13/23/asset/477a38122bb4/sub-buzz-470-1584141544-1.png?crop=1280:599;0,0&downsize=900:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/13/2... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/health/coronavirus-midlife-conditions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/health/coronavirus-midlif...
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  It's not like obesity isn't a problem in Europe, too. 25% is lower than 42%, sure, but it's still a lot.
  - m_ke 7y ago
    We have way more morbidly obese people though http://ncdrisc.org/morbid-obesity-population-bubble.html http://ncdrisc.org/morbid-obesity-population-bubble.html
7y ago

toast0 7y ago

I don't think the options are have a lockdown vs have a functioning economy and a bunch of sick people. Once hospitals start overflowing with this, you're not going to have a functioning economy anyway. If hospitals can get the supplies they need, and testing and health department capacity is there to do contact tracing, the lockdowns can loosen, and our economy can start back up. Bonus points if the warmer weather in the coming months helps fight the virus.

daenz 7y ago
>Once hospitals start overflowing with this, you're not going to have a functioning economy anyway. Is this true though? I'm not trying to be insensitive, but according to reports, ~15% of the infected need hospitalization, and the distribution of those people are mostly over 60[0]. Is having these people hospitalized on a large scale more detrimental to the economy than shutting everything down? Serious question. 0. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm
- zaroth 7y ago
  The vast majority of people with COVID do not end up at the hospital. So it is absolute fact that we are sacrificing the economy in order to save, relatively speaking, a select few. If this continues for more than a few weeks - 50% of American business dies. 50% of America is unemployed. Contagion from massive defaults and write-offs spreads throughout the entire economy. Money printing at a rate heretofore unimaginable and probably hyperinflation to follow. It is no less than committing hari-kari in a moral panic. Hopefully we will wake up from the fever dream before it’s too late. “Flatten the curve” is a terrible lie. The extent and duration of the measures required would bankrupt 95% of the country. ICUs being overrun is actually an argument for getting the COVID cases out of the way quickly, not dragging it out over, say, 24 months. If you can get your head around the scale involved, if 80% of people are going to be infected and 14% of those are going to need serious treatment (doubtful, but the same assumption the “flatten” exercise is based on), there is actually no way to keep COVID cases “at or below” ICU capacity. They will absolutely take 100% of capacity and beyond for more than a year, if you drag it out. The longer you have COVID cases overwhelming your system, the longer you have non-COVID routine emergencies getting untreated. Either you can contain it in a few weeks or you have to let it burn through. There is no “slow smolder” scenario I can see that leaves society intact.

qqn 7y ago

> People voted, had spring break, celebrated st. Patrick’s day Sounds a lot like Philly' Spanish flu parade,[1] as compared to St. Louis' lockdown during the same.[2] [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chart-1918-spanish-flu-shows-173312236.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chart-1918-spanish-flu-shows-... [2] https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/quartz.com/df26ee36f79f85f57ad0137d3bf12c52 https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/quartz.com/df26ee36f79f85f57ad...

whb07 7y ago

Nowhere have you seen numbers that remotely approach 1-3%. You’ve seen the critical, largely elderly population get tested and from that you get that number that’s freaking people out. Stop spreading panic. With those kinds of numbers China alone would have 10M+ dead. In Japan, Singapore, surrounding nations more millions dead. Use a bit more common sense. We know we haven’t tested enough in the US, yet we don’t have bodies piling up on the street. You don’t have families of 4 where 2 suddenly die. This has been going on for greater than 3 months now. Stop spreading fear. The only thing to fear is the terrible consequences of those stuck inside the fear bubble

empath75 7y ago
China would have had those numbers if they didn’t quarantine a whole region for 3 months. They may still have those numbers after they lift the quarantine.
- whb07 7y ago
  Quick now do the same for the 50 other countries nearby. What was their reason?
m_ke 7y ago
4 dead and 3 more in critical condition from a single family: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coronavirus-shatters-new-jersey-family-kills-3-4-more-hospitals-n1163696 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coronavirus-shatters-ne... 26 dead at the washington nursing home, 50 tested positive: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-deaths-washington-nursing-home-outbreak-2020-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-deaths-washingto... Death rates by preexisting condition: https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/13/23/asset/477a38122bb4/sub-buzz-470-1584141544-1.png?crop=1280:599;0,0&downsize=900:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/13/2... America has 42% obesity rate and a huge population with diabetes and heart issues, the numbers for 30-60 year olds might end up looking a lot worse than in Asia and Europe.
- smallgovt 7y ago

opportune 7y ago

Well, in California: I got my groceries from people wearing masks. Everybody in the store kept 6 feet distance. I've been working from home for 2 weeks and will continue to do so for at least 3 more. Company wide mandate. Almost every business other than groceries/other essentials (where some are surprisingly "essential", granted) are closed so people have no reason to break quarantine except to perform essential tasks. So overall, I'd say we are doing exactly what we need to be doing. Hopefully the rest of the country follows suit

justanotherc 7y ago

Masks and gloves are ineffective for people who don't know how to use them -- wearing a mask? Great. Now you just felt hot and pulled the mask down onto your chin. Congratulations, the outside of the mask is no longer sterile. You're wearing gloves? Fabulous. Now you're out shopping pushing a cart and you just scratched your nose with your gloves. Cart handle is now contaminated or visa versa and gloves didn't change anything. PPE is only effective under very controlled environments, and the general population doesn't understand this. The economy will recover, especially since EVERY country is taking a hit, I don't think it will take very long for the capitalist engine to roar back to life. That's the beauty about capitalism -- you're turning the ingenuity of humans loose to be productive. As humans we're great at figuring out how to be productive.

oggy 7y ago
The effectiveness doesn't need to be perfect. If I'm now only 50% less contagious to others with my no-longer-sterile mask, that's a huge win.
- justanotherc 7y ago
  There is a shortage of masks and other PPE because people think that way. There is a cost because if everyone were to wear masks, there is not enough supply for healthcare professionals who could actually benefit from them. The percentage of effectiveness isn't really measurable if the standard isn't followed. You're assuming its 50%, but it very well could be 0% because your equipment is just as contaminated as your hands. So you have not helped yourself, AND you have decreased supply of essential equipment from someone who ACTUALLY needs it. That's a big fail.
  - oggy 7y ago
    I agree that we shouldn't be taking the supply away from the professionals while there's a shortage, but your statement was that they were ineffective in the hands of laymen, and I don't think that's true. I'm not assuming that they are 50% effective either, I pulled the 50% number out of my ass, but so is your 0%, and I find it hard to imagine a physical reality where me keeping a 6 feet distance to an infected person decreases my infection probability significantly more than that person wearing a mask. Anecdotally, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, where wearing masks is quite commonplace all seem to be doing better in transmission rate than the Western world, and all that without killing their economies. And considering that we're producing around 2 billion disposable plastic bottles a day, I'd currently bet money that we should be able to ramp up the supply of cheap masks for a sum that's a lot less than that of halting 50% of the Western economy for several months. Obviously, it can't happen in a day, but I'm not really seeing anyone try, except for perhaps Trump after his recent epiphany that Corona is not a Democrats' hoax. I'm willing to be dissuaded by someone who's actually thought it through, but sadly I haven't seen any such analyses.

asdff 7y ago

More can definitely be done with enforcing quarantine. In LA, meat is still prepared and served openly on the side of the road, so long as you have a relatively trivial permit. Even though the state is 'locked down,' you are still free to venture out at your leisure. Technically bars are supposed to be closed, but there is a pervasive speakeasy culture that hasn't slowed down. The most vulnerable groups, the working class that pack like sardines in public transit every day, either continue work or are laid off. Tenement conditions still exist in Los Angeles, with multiple families cramming into a 1br apartment. Quarantine is really only affecting the knowledge workers who make up a minority of the population, and who interact with a sliver of the population to begin with. Effective quarantine would include protections for the working class, but there isn't any political will. I'm legitimately fearful of hitting the breaking point. Maybe some would call it overblown, or hysteria, but this is a city that endured three days of looting after a verdict, requiring the national guard to stabilize the situation. Men with rifles used to take positions on the roof of my grocery store. This isn't ancient history, unfortunately, it's who we are when pushed past our limits with nothing left to lose.

abootstrapper 7y ago

You have a point. We should have been aggressively testing at the start. Imagine if we had thrown the same amount of effort and money into initial testing as we are economic relief now. We'd still be open for business! But our leadership failed. So, now we have to lock down, but we should be doing it 100%. Hard core. Lock down. This weak half measure of "recommended guidelines" and leaving it up to local governments to adopt them is undermining the entire effort. It's tanking the economy AND not going to work. Let's swallow the damn pill and get it over with! Why is our leadership intent on dragging this out as long as possible? We should have been in hardcore, national lock down mode last Monday. We'll come around, once it's too late. "Americans will always do the right thing — after exhausting all the alternatives."

pdr2020 7y ago

"All this to say: I think we are losing our economy and I think probably this isn’t effective." Fixed this for you. (Additional comment: I will counter with I'm really amazed how quickly people threw away the economy in an effort to reduce lost lives. Normally, I expect people to be much more mercurial)